I think being a traveler, wanting to travel, etc as well as the way you like to think about travel is a really personal, multifaceted and completely engineerable thing.
When I got my college degree and I was a young single mother I sold my car and most of my things and I moved to South Africa with my little kid. We lived and worked there for a couple of years, moved north in Africa and lived and worked in another country for a couple of years, then returned to the US so I could go to graduate school.
While we were in Africa, once the newness of our living situation wore off, we were constantly wandering to the next town for the day, or doing a weekend trip to a place 3 or 4 hours away, or crossing the border into the next country for a week for vacation. Those places were near to our home base, but they offered a change of scenery, so for sure that felt like traveling to me.
Once back in the US we did the same thing. We were in our native country but we still wandered to the next town for the day, weekend trips, crossed the border for a week's vacation. Still felt like travel to me.
Nowadays I'm really into hammock camping. I have all my gear in the back of my car and I take off for weekends straight from my work parking lot, find a place a couple hours away and hang my hammock and chill out. It's not far geographically, but it's travel to me because of the way I think about it and use it for recreation and rest. It's "AWAY" - which for me is a kind of magical word. I'm going away, getting away, yeah it's just a couple of hours, but removing myself from my current view and seeing something new when I open my eyes.
In the summer when my job is off, I take off to other countries again for the same reason. I like to be in places where I don't speak the language, so even my ears and brain get that AWAY sense. Okay, everything is unfamiliar, everything is new, ready to be discovered. Buying food is a challenge. Greeting someone very simply has to be learned. I feel like a child again in the best possible way, with all the agency and resources of an adult. It's fantastic. So that's travel for me, too.
I have no idea how retirement will change any of this for me. It probably won't. I'll just be an older person having these experiences.